POLICY ANALYSIS ON

PRADHAN MANTRI GRAM SADAK

YOJANA(PMGSY), 2000

SUBMITTED TO
Prof HIPPU SALK KRISHNA NATHAN
PRADHAN MANTRI GRAM SADAK YOJNA(PMGSY)

INTRODUCTION:
Rural development extends development benefits to the poorest among those seeking a
living in rural areas, including small-scale farmers, tenants, and landless people.
Infrastructure plays a critical part in its economic development, and India is no
exception. Infrastructure is essential for agriculture, agro-industries, and poverty
reduction in rural regions because it provides the necessary productive conditions for
social and economic growth and improving quality of life. Roads are highly significant,
and it is the key to the success of the rural economy, rural health, education, and better
road connectivity with the rest of the world. Rural road connectivity is an essential
component of rural development in India, as it promotes access to economic and social
services programs to many of the country's habitats who are without proper road
connectivity.
Even where connectivity is presenr, it is commonly recognized that the roads are of
poor quality (due to poor construction or maintenance) that they cannot always be
classified as all-weather roads. To redress the situation, the Government launched the
Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana on 25 December 2000 to provide all-weather
th

access to eligible unconnected habitations. The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana 1
(PMGSY) is a 100% Centrally Sponsored Scheme. The PMGSY's primary goal is to
connect eligible disconnected Habitations in rural regions with a population of 500
people or more in Plain areas with an all-weather road (complete with appropriate
culverts and cross-drainage structures) that is open all year. The Pradhan Mantri Gram
Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) was launched by the Govt. of India to provide connectivity to
unconnected Habitations as part of a poverty reduction strategy. Increased connectivity
will enable the rural people to take advantage of government-sponsored jobs, health,
education, and other social welfare programs. Good, trustworthy roads provide easier
and faster communication from farm to market, ensure timely movement of perishable
goods from villages to market centers, and encourage businesses to relocate to the
hinterland, among other things.

PMGSY-I: Phase I was launched in December 2000, with the aim to provide single
weather connectivity to all eligible unconnected habitations in rural areas with a
population of 500 persons and above in the plain areas, 250 and above in North East,
hill, tribal and desert areas. The agenda behind this is for the overall socio-economic
development of these areas. Connectivity Through Routes of the Core Network was the
main priority of the PMGSY scheme.

PMGSY-II: As the Programme progressed, it became clear that there was a pressing
need for the consolidation of the entire rural road network, as well as an upgrade of
elected roots and some significant ruler links, and a new intervention, PMGSY-II, was
born. The need for existing networks to be consolidated was recognized in order to
guarantee that they meet the fundamental objectives of connectivity for local

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communities and enable economic transportation of products and services to improve
livelihood prospects as part of a poverty reduction plan. The PMGSY-II program's
goals are as follows: Upgrading existing rural roads based on their economic potential
and role in enabling the expansion of rural market centers and rural hubs will be
covered. The building of growth centers and rural hubs is crucial to the overall goal of
promoting poverty alleviation through rural infrastructure development.

PMGSY-III: Phase III, which is the current phase of PMGSY, entails the up-
gradation of existing team roots and critical rural linkages that connect habitations to
Gramin agricultural markets (GrAMs), higher secondary schools, and hospitals, as well
as the consolidation of existing rural road networks. The Government is focusing on
providing affordable and simple access to health services, and road connections play a
crucial role in this road have proven a strong correlation with improved health
indicators. With current technological advancements in many areas, easy access to high
schools and higher secondary institutions is a must. The Government wants to make it
easier and faster to get from food processing centers to agriculture markets and other
pharmaceutical-related businesses.

Objectives: The primary objective of the PMGSY is to connect eligible unconnected

habitations in rural areas with a population of 500 people or more (2001 census) in plain
areas through an all-weather road (with necessary culverts and cross-drainage
structures that are operational all year). In the case of special category states
(Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim,
Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, and Uttarakhand), desert areas (as
identified in the Desert Development Programme), tribal areas (Schedule V of the
Constitution), and selected tribal and backward areas (as identified by the Ministry of
Home Affairs and Planning Commission), the goal would be to connect eligible
unconnected (2001 census). Unconnected habitations with a population of 100 or more
(as determined by the Ministry of Home Affairs) are eligible to be covered under the
scheme for the most intensive IAP (Integrated Action Plan) blocks.
The PMGSY will allow for the upgradation (to prescribed standards) of existing roads
in districts where all eligible habitations of the designated population size (detailed
above) have all-weather road connectivity. It should be noted, however, that upgrading
is not central to the programme. Priority should be given to upgrading works to the
Rural Core Network's Through Routes, which carry the most traffic.

PMGSY SIGNIFICANCE: With respect to rural India, PMGSY is an essential

scheme for development. Its benefits and significance are clustered below:
 Rural road connectivity is vital for two reasons. First, to enhance access to social
and economic services, thereby increasing farm incomes and employment

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 opportunities for rural people. Second, roads are a key ingredient in poverty in
poverty alleviation.
 Development of all roads comes under State whereas development of National
Highways is a Central subject. Therefore, the development of rural roads gets
affected due to inadequate allotment of funds. This Scheme fills the gap in the
development of rural roads.
 Connectivity helps the rural population to avail opportunities for employment,
health, education, and other social welfare schemes provided by the
Government. Dependable roads offer good connectivity to the markets, timely
movement of perishable products, and an incentive for industries to move to
rural locations where labor is cheaper.
 Connectivity increases the willingness of health workers, teachers & agriculture
extension workers to move to villages to offer services. This leads to knowledge
transfer from city to villages and allows economies of scale.

GUIDELINES & PRINCIPLES OF PMGSY:

1. The spirit and objective of Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) are
to provide good all-weather connectivity to unconnected Habitation. A
habitation, with all-weather connectivity roads, is not eligible even if the present
condition of the road is terrible.
2. The unit of PMGSY is a Habitation and not a Revenue village or a Panchayat.
Habitation is a cluster of the population living in an area that does not change
over time. Desam, Dhanis, Tolas, Majras, Hamlets, etc., are some commonly used
terminologies.
3. An unconnected habitation is one with population size of500 located at a distance
of 500metres (1.5km of path distance for Hills).
4. The population size of a Habitation should be according to the Census 2001. The
population of all Habitation within a radius of 500m (1.5km in the case of Hills)
may be clubbed to determine the population size.
5. Habitations eligible are to be connected to nearby Habitation connected with an
All-weather Road or directly to another All-weather Road.
6. A core network is that minimal network of Roads that is essential to provide
Basic access to crucial social and economic services to eligible habitations.
7. A Core Network comprises Through Routes and Link Routes. Through Roads
are defined as roads which are connected to several link roads and collect traffic
and lead towards Market Centres either directly or through high category roads,
i.e., District Roads or National Highways. Link routes generally have a dead-end
terminating on a habitation.
8. Each and every network that is a part of the Core network comes under
PMGSY. Preference should be given to roads which are connected with other
Habitants, i.e., first covering 1000+ habitants, then 500+ habitats, and at last
250+ habitants. Preference should be given to roads which serve a larger
population, for this Habitation within a distance of 500m in plain areas and
1.5km in hills.

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 9. Urban roads are not a part of the Programme. Even in Rural areas, PMGSY
covers "Other Classified Roads (ODR) ."These are roads serving rural areas of
production and providing them connectivity to market centers. Village Roads
(VR) are roads connecting villages/ habitation or groups of Habitation with each
other to the nearest road of a higher category. All National and District
highways are not part of this Scheme.
10. Envisages only single road connectivity. If Habitation is connected to an already
connected All-weather Road, then development cannot take place under
PMGSY.
11. Provision of connectivity to an Unconnected Habitation would be termed New
Connectivity. The purpose of PMGSY is to provide farm-to-market connectivity,
which involves new construction where a link to Habitation is missing and
"Upgradation" where the present condition of the road is terrible.
12. Upgradation involves building the base surface courses of an existing road to
desired technical specifications and improving the geometrics of the road.
13. The main focus is to provide an All-weather Road to the eligible unconnected
Habitations. All-weather roads imply that the roadbed is drained effectively.
14. Fair-weather roads are usable only during the dry season because of the lack of
Cross Drainage (CD) works. Conversion of such avenues to All-weather roads
through the provision of CD works would be treated as upgradation.
15. PMGSY does not permit repairs to Black-topped or Cement Roads, even if the
surface condition is terrible.
16. Rural Roads constructed under the PMGSY will be with the provision of the
Indian Roads Congress (IRC) as given in the Rural Roads Manual (IRC:
SP20:2002). In case of Hill Roads and for matters not covered by the Rural
Roads Manual, provisions of Hills Roads Manual (IRC: SP:48) may apply.

Approach Towards Public Policy:

The public policy involves 5 phases from the emergence of the root cause for which
policy needs to be designed to the implementation and evaluation phase of the policy.
For formulating any procedure, the concerned authority needs to realize the character
of the problem, the target groups for whom the policy is designed, coherence between
what design and implementation, and the role of public & private actors. Agenda
setting decides the intensity, urgency of that problem, and extent to which needs are
addressed. Levels of agenda-setting determine the right approach for its design and
implementation. After the 1980s in India, there were basically two approaches for policy
making and implementation, i.e., Top-down Approach & Bottom-up Approach.
Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) is an example of a Top-down
Approach. The Government of India launched PMGSY to promote access to economic
and social services to increase income and productive opportunities for the rural
population. Ministry of Rural Development, along with State governments, is
responsible for implementing PMGSY. The government followed this approach to

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minimize the number of actors involved in designing and to limit the changes made. A
good road map is necessary to achieve the objective of the Programme systematically
and cost-effectively.
Guidelines for preparing the Road Plan and Core Network should be strictly followed
to achieve the goals with certain modifications, which is an essential criterion of the
Top-down Approach. For this, a lot of agencies like Intermediate Panchayat, District
Panchayat as well as State Level Agencies got involved. These committees were formed
along with the Core representatives responsible for monitoring. These representatives
included MLAs and MPs.
The District Core Network was appointed to identify the entire existing road network in
the district and to identify the proposed roads to Unconnected Habitations economically
and efficiently. District Panchayat was responsible for the selection of the set of socio-
economic infrastructure for the Habitation. All these plans would be implemented
firstly at the Block level. Block Level Plan and Core Network are placed before
Intermediate Panchayat for approval of Core Network. This plan is then sent to MPs
and MLAs for feedback and comments. Once District Panchayat approves Core
Network, a copy of it is sent to State-level Agency and National Rural Roads
Development Agency. All these steps are required for the selection of a Habitat for
development. These were the necessary steps involved in implementing the Top-down
approach in Phase- I, which mostly followed in Phase- II and Phase- III with minimal
changes in guiding principles. The government also launched a parallel Road
Connectivity Project in 2016 for Left Wing Extremism Affected Areas.
All these steps were followed in a Top-down Approach model where the problems are
broken down into parts to make them easy to implement. The core design strategy and
guidelines remain the same mostly. Following this approach makes it easy for on-
ground implementation as it is easy for the top to influence the bottom. Top-down
approaches are time-efficient and can be easily monitored and modified. Therefore,
most of the policies in our country are an example of this approach.

Total road length sanctioned till FY 2022-23

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